Ask and You Shall Retrieve
by Philip Albinus
The Rolling Stones lied. Time isn't on your side when the overflow of documents threatens to inundate you. AskSam Electronic Publisher may just be the life raft you need. It makes data more accessible by turning manuals, reports, catalogs, notes and memos into electronic document databases.
If you've used askSam the database with the look and feel of a word processor you'll be right at home with askSam Electronic Publisher. It includes askSam 2.0 and the askSam Viewer, a distributable, read-only version of askSam. You can create electronic documents and databases from any Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Lotus Word Pro or WordStar document.
Using askSam Electronic Publisher is simple. Start by importing a document, and then create hypertext jumps to different sections or pages of the document, similar to those in a Windows help file.
Distribute your document along with the Viewer, which is a pared-down version of askSam with toolbar buttons for opening files, skipping to the previous, next, first and last page, and zooming in and out. You can also print pages.
The Viewer includes the askSam search engine. Type the desired word in the Search line and click on Search for a Boolean, date, numeric, hypertext, proximity or full-text search. Security can be set to require a password to read a file or to restrict editing.
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askSam Electronic Publisher
Price: $1,495
Disk Space: 6MB
System Resources: 7%
RAM: 4MB
askSam Systems
800-800-1997, 904-584-6590
by John J. Yacono
When NEC set out to create its 75MHz PowerMate VP75 desktop, it tried to make sure there was something for everyone. For multimedia mavens, this Plug-and-Play PCI/ISA-bus machine comes with 8MB of RAM (expandable to 128MB), a 1.2GB IDE hard drive, a Sound Blaster 16-bit sound card, a microphone, powered speakers and a quad-speed IDE CD-ROM drive.
For technophiles who find happiness delving into their PC's insides, the motherboard supports four IDE devices, freeing slots for other adapters. Since only two are used, another two are still available for expandability. The motherboard also provides Cirrus Logic-based, 64-bit PCI video, with 1MB DRAM upgradable to 2MB.
System administrators will like the Desktop Management Interface, which eases hardware tracking by compiling an inventory of the system. The inventory includes the serial number, product model number, BIOS-revision number, memory capacity, disk capacity, expansion-board settings and installed applications. The interface works with protocols like the Simple Network Management Protocol. A Management Information Format browser is included, to let you view inventory locally.
Little amenities round out the package. For example, the connectors are labeled to reduce confusion. Knurled screws fasten the cabinet, so you don't need tools to open the case. The unit is Energy Star compliant and comes with a suspend-mode button.
During my Wintune tests, the PowerMate VP75's CPU cranked out 81.2MIPS, and its floating-point unit, 16MFLOPS. The video subsystem rendered 6,494K pixels per second. To put the performance in perspective, its RAM and disk access scores were faster than those of a Zeos Pantera 90, and its video performance was equal to that formidable platform. Its RAM-access score was also equal to a Micron P90PCI PowerStation's and exceeded a Dell Dimension XPS P90's. (Note that these other machines are 90MHz models.) Also, the CD-ROM proved itself a true quad-speed unit.
For speed and features, the PowerMate VP75 is an impressive 75MHz unit.
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NEC PowerMate VP75
Price: $2,400
NEC Technologies
800-NEC-INFO, 508-264-800
Personal Power Trip
by: Michelle Tyrrell
The next time you're plugging away at that vitally important report or spreadsheet that you haven't saved in half an hour, imagine the consequences of a power surge or blackout. In a split second, you could lose everything. The Smart Series 675 UPS from Tripp Lite can make that nightmare a thing of the past.
Yes, it's heavy (24 pounds) and boxy (7.75 by 4.75 by 13 inches) and not very pretty, but this 675VA unit will keep most desktop systems up and running for a minimum of six minutes after the power dies. You'll have time to save your work, close applications and shut down your systems properly. The PowerAlert Plus software sold separately will save your work automatically if you're not around.
The Smart Series 675 provides spike, surge and noise filtering, and can monitor and control the temperature, line voltage and frequency. When I performed the self-test, the switch from AC current was seamless. The front panel includes status lights. The back panel has four AC outlets, a circuit breaker, a LAN interface port and a remote-control interface port.
The $469 price tag and the easy-to-use hardware and software make this UPS a smart choice for anyone who wants to buy a little peace of mind.
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Tripp Lite Smart Series 675
Price: $469; PowerAlert Plus software, $89
Tripp Lite
312-755-5402, fax 312-644-6505
PIM Aspires, Inspires
James E. Powell
Ascend 5.0 rises to the occasion with a new interface and improved usability. This PIM has added drag-and-drop scheduling and calendar adjustment, plus better printing including a preview option and right button pop-up menus. You can also link contacts and appointments automatically, set timers for phone calls and log notes for incoming or outgoing calls.
I liked Ascend's daily record of events, which can be indexed. You can move entries from this journal to a monthly index handy for knocking out a monthly status report. Ascend's group scheduler checks other network users' calendars for available meeting times. When a time slot is found, Ascend notifies attendees via its new interface with Microsoft Mail or cc: Mail. The Master Task List now lets you enter unlimited categories for tasks without specifically scheduled times. You can also drag these tasks to or from your Prioritized Daily List.
Ascend still has some limitations. As with earlier versions, appointments must be scheduled in 15-minute blocks, and the search feature can only be used to find contacts with a specific birthday, but not for a range of dates. You can't add your own custom fields to contact records and there's room for only four telephone numbers although they can be labeled differently for each contact.
The program's interface is less cluttered. Options like the Contact History screen are very well designed and a pleasure to use. If you use the Franklin Quest time-management philosophy, you'll like the new templates, which offer predefined text for setting and achieving your goals. Turbo File, another new feature, lets you store and index miscellaneous pieces of information that may be unrelated to specific contact records.
Although Ascend 5.0 is improved over the previous version, it still falls short of its competition in some areas. But if your work habits tend toward goal setting and accomplishment, Ascend is the best product on the market for helping you stay focused.
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Ascend 5.0
Price: $149; upgrade, $49.95
Disk Space: 8MB
System Resources: 10%
RAM: 4MB
Franklin Quest Co.
800-877-1814, 801-975-9999
Snap Shots from Video Sources
by: Jim Forbes
Capturing and editing images from video sources doesn't have to be rocket science. In fact, Snappy, a new peripheral that plugs into your computer's parallel port, can simplify the process.
Snappy ships with three applications: Snappy Video Snapshot, and scaled-down versions of Fauve Matisse and Gryphon's Morph 2.5. Capture images with Video Snapshot, which also lets you control the brightness, color saturation, hue, contrast and other image attributes. These images come from external video sources, such as videotapes, laser discs, camcorders, cable or even broadcast signals.
Matisse lets you perform more exotic editing. Morph 2.5 allows you to morph one image into another.
Installation is easy and fast. Simply attach the dongle to your parallel port and install the software that comes on a single disk. I tested Snappy on a 75MHz Pentium machine with 8MB of memory and a 486-powered notebook. The performance on both platforms was impressive, but if you're serious about video, be sure you have a high-performance graphics adapter.
If you have a camcorder, laser disc player or VCR and want or need to create first-rate stills from video sources, Snappy is for you.
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Snappy
Price: $199.95
Play
800-306-7529, 916-851-0801.
Automatic Disk Washer
by Hailey Lynne McKeefry
Out with the old, in with the new. Time to sweep out unused files to make room for hot, new apps. Remove-IT 2 helps you clear out unneeded files and reorganize your hard disk efficiently.
Version 2 adds network support, so you can tidy up your network directories, too.
The Clean-Up coach steps you through each of the program's modules. The uninstall utility quickly zaps unwanted applications, and Find-IT provides a list of unreferenced or duplicate files. I reclaimed about 5MB of disk space just by deleting wayward files.
Clean-IT identifies fonts, drivers, unattached icons and other files .INI, zero-byte, temp, backup, support, text and picture files for possible deletion. Each is marked with a green GO symbol, a yellow Caution sign or a red Stop sign. You can check off the items you want to delete and sidestep those that you're unsure about. I netted another 4.4MB using Clean-IT.
Smart Disk Custodian and Log-IT are enabled at startup, but if this puts a hit on system resources, you may want to run them only as needed. The Custodian alerts you when an application or file isn't used for a user-specified period. Log-IT tracks the changes an application installation makes, so that the changes are reversible once the application is removed. Remove-IT also adds the Installation Knowledge-Base, an encyclopedia of over 1,000 application installations to help clean up after applications that were added prior to using Log-IT.
Transfer-IT, another new module, lets you create a compressed, self-installing backup of an application. Store-IT compresses an application and then decompresses it when you click on its icon.
Remove-IT 2 includes an Upgrade Assistant for Windows 95, which removes unnecessary files to make room for the new OS and helps reconfigure apps for Win 95. The Post-Installation Cleanup removes extraneous Windows 3.x and DOS files that remain.
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Remove-IT 2
Price: $69.95; upgrade, $29.95
Vertisoft Systems
800-466-5875, 415-956-5999
by: James E. Powell
Beware the ides of March or just add it to your application with Calendar Widgets. The product includes 16- and 32-bit OLE controls (OCX versions) and 16-bit VBX controls that you use to make your applications more timely by adding a pop-up calendar or a custom control for user-entered appointments.
The YearView control displays one year at a time, starting at any month. MonthView lets you display up to three consecutive months, vertically or horizontally. You can begin on any day of the week, and disable holidays and weekends. Add a Today's Date button to jump to the current date, and VCR-style buttons to flip through months and years.
The DateCombo control is used for data-entry forms. You can display combinations of the day of the week and month, day and year. A drop-down calendar provides all the features of the MonthView control. You change the month, day and year areas of the input field using spin buttons, the plus and minus keys, or the up- and down-arrow keys.
The DayView control lets you create an area where the application user can add appointments to a daily schedule. You set the color and fill pattern for durations, the alarm picture and time intervals.
Data can be bound to any valid data source, such as a VB data control. Calendar Widgets supports dates from 1/1/100 to 12/31/9999, so your application can stand the test of time.
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Calendar Widgets 1.0
Price: $139
Disk Space: 3MB
System Resources: NA
RAM: 4MB
Sheridan Software Systems
516-753-0985, fax 516-753-3661
by James E. Powell
Windows only DOS need not apply. The Panasonic KX-P6100 printer is a Windows-only printer. You can't even print directly from DOS unless you're working in a DOS box in Windows. The printer takes advantage of Windows' internal design by printing directly in GDI (Graphics Device Interface) mode. Throw in Edge Enhancement and Photo Enhancement, and you've got one excellent printer.
This printer is small, measuring 11.5 by 5.2 by 14.9 inches. The paper tray folds down on the right, and paper feeds up and out into another fold-out tray at the printer's top. Therefore, when in operation, you'll need a 12-inch clearance.
The KX-P6100 comes with diagnostic tools that include short, animated problem-solving explanations. It properly noted all the common problems out of paper, out of toner, no power, and so on. The printer can handle 100 sheets of paper or 30 sheets of labels, transparencies, or 10 envelopes, and prints up to 6 pages per minute. Installation takes all of two minutes. I tested printing with several applications and found the GDI mode, in particular, yields outstanding results.
The printer is incredibly quiet, and since it has no fan, there's no noise in standby mode.
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Panasonic KX-P6100 Laser Printer
Price: $499
Panasonic Communications & Systems Co.
800-742-8086, 201-348-7000
Card Reader's an Ace
by Joel T. Patz
Attend a trade show or convention, and you're likely to be dealt a handful of business cards. So you end up with new contacts and a seriously out-of-date PIM or Rolodex. You could enter them manually or save yourself a lot of time and trouble using Business Card Reader (BCR) 2.0.
BCR, which I tested in beta, uses state-of-the-art OCR technology and works with a wide range of card, hand, sheet and flatbed scanners.
BCR offers more than 30 data fields for contact information, 12 of which can be customized. Your international contacts pose no problem for the product's sleuthing capabilities it can read business cards in English and 11 European languages. You can link BCR's database to several contact managers, such as ACT, GoldMine and Maximizer, and contact information can be exported to word processors and databases. You can also use BCR's CardFile to print labels using commercially available label stock.
After scanning cards, search the database by name, zip code or any other field. Sort cards by name, company, state, zip code or date. BCR's toolbar provides quick access to many menu functions. The Help file supplies instructional assistance that complements, but does not always repeat, information in the user guide.
Your scanner's quality determines the OCR output quality. I tested the program using a 300dpi Fujitsu scanner. Although the beta of BCR didn't directly support it, I found that the driver for a Primax hand-held scanner worked for single-card feeding. BCR can also scan eight cards at a time. The larger the font on the business card, the better the results, but even at 300dpi, some similar characters were often confused. The program was smart enough, however, to figure out which was the telephone and fax number on both vertically and horizontally printed cards.
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Business Card Reader (BCR) 2.0
Price: $99
Maxsoft-Ocron
800-933-1399, 510-252-0200
Mobile Multimedia Upgrade
by: Jim Forbes
If you're envious of new notebook computers that include self-contained CD-ROM drives, the Axonix ProMedia Player Plus just might be the cure.
ProMedia Player Plus ships with everything you need to turn your notebook into a portable multimedia computer. The package includes an external double-speed CD-ROM drive, a separate 16-bit Sound Blaster-compatible audio unit with two integrated stereo speakers, installation software, cables, an external power supply and a PCMCIA card.
The drive and audio unit plug together and are connected to your notebook using a single Type II PCMCIA card. The connector cable is permanently attached to the PCMCIA card. I installed the ProMedia Player Plus on a Toshiba T1960, an NEC Versa and an AST Ascentia 900N, and it performed flawlessly. One cautionary note: This device is not compatible with all notebooks. Call Axonix to ensure compatibility before you buy.
Setting up ProMedia Player Plus is a snap. Installing the software and connecting the unit takes less than 10 minutes.
The durable, plastic ProMedia Player Plus' CD-ROM player has controls that are easily accessible and its sound is crisp and clear. Axonix supplies a nylon carrying case that will accommodate everything but the external speakers.
This product can extend the life of an older DSTN or TFT-equipped notebook. If you want to add multimedia to your older system and can afford the $499 price tag, I recommend it.
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Axonix ProMedia Player Plus
Price: $499 (street)
Axonix Corp.
800-866-9797, 801-521-9797
Be Bach in a Minute
by James E. Powell
Silence may be golden, but it won't get much attention. With AudioTracks you can break the bounds of silence and add sound to your applications like spicing up a ho-hum presentation with some hummable tunes.
AudioTracks Professional is not only a great tool, it's also fun. You can create custom-tailored music in .WAV or MIDI format that's just the right length, tempo and style for your application. Your creations are royalty-free and you don't have to hassle with auditioning scores of clip media.
The program is remarkably simple to use. From its main screen you select a musical style from among the 50 choices, including jazz, rock, rap (sans lyrics), classical and country. You then adjust the style's parameters, such as the tempo. The center of the display has icons for controlling the instrument mix. Depending on the Band choice you make, the instruments may include drums, strings, guitar, piano, bass or horns. Each is represented by an icon and moving an icon lower decreases that instrument's volume.
You can set the tempo and key using slider bars, and set the length of your composition from 15.5 seconds to more than an hour. You also control the opening and closing of the passage. You can make it fade in; start as a loud, sudden sound; or maybe start quietly, get loud in the middle and become soft again at the end. Click on the Compose icon and AudioTracks makes the music. Since the program uses the equivalent of a random number generator, each time you press the Compose button, AudioTracks creates something new. A preview feature lets you listen to the results. You can save it as a .WAV or .MID file, or in AudioTracks' proprietary format for later tweaking.
The program supports OLE 2.0 as a server, so you can drag and drop your compositions into an OLE 2.0-compliant application and edit your music there.
I tested the program with Windows 95 because of its superior multimedia performance. It works just as well under Windows 3.1.
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AudioTracks Professional 2.0
Price: $149.95
Blue Ribbon SoundWorks Ltd.
800-226-0212, 404-315-0212
by: Lori L. Bloomer
Let's face it: Multimedia is great, but all the gee-whiz value fades when you watch animations crawl from the CD-ROM drive. Plextor's 6PleX series of drives is rated with a blazing 900KBps transfer rate. The 6PleX drives have earned the six-speed designation due to this ability to pump lots of data, not because of their impressive 145ms access time.
Installing the Plextor was one of the easiest experiences I've ever had while spelunking in my PC's innards. The factory settings worked just fine in a fully loaded system, probably because the system was running Windows 95. The system recognized both card and drive easily, and I had the drive up and running in less than 15 minutes.
I couldn't benchmark the drive, since I tested it with a late beta version of Windows 95. But I did test it extensively. I compared the Plextor 6PleX's performance against that of a Plextor 4PleX quad-speed. The improvement in performance over the already swift quad-speed drive was noticeable, but not dramatic. The only significant increase in performance I observed was when opening large graphics or multimedia files.
For multimedia mavens, or extensive clip-media work, this drive is a worthwhile addition to a system.
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Plextor 6PleX PX-63CS CD-ROM Drive
Price: With 16-bit SCSI bus mastering card, $649
Plextor
800-886-3935, 408-980-1838
Colorful Jet Set
by Jonathan Blackwood
If you want to get into color printing, there are now ink jet models that can do quite a credible job in the $1,400 to $2,000 range. Providing reliable color printing for less than that generally involves a number of compromises. One case in point is the Okidata Okijet 2010 color ink jet printer.
First, the good news. The Okijet 2010 is a snap to set up. It comes with a terrific printer driver that lets you configure just about everything, and gives you the status of your print job both graphically and by spoken announcements and of the printer. It even provides the status of the two ink cartridges. The Okijet 2010 produces quite acceptable color output, even of photographic images, in its 600x300dpi, presentation-quality mode. The whole shebang is just 11.7 by 17.2 by 10.6 inches, and weighs in at 9.75 pounds.
Products in this category are intended for home use, or to augment a laser or monochrome ink jet for the SOHO market. The 2010's light duty cycle (200 pages per month average use, 1,000 pages per month maximum) prohibits its use as a corporate workhorse.
If it's black text printing you want, you won't find it here. The best ink jet printers now offer pigment-based true-black printing that approaches laser quality. The 2010's black output is more of the charcoal-gray variety, even in presentation-quality mode, which is slower than a slug. I timed 2.5 minutes per page for a monochrome text document printed in presentation mode and you'd never mistake it for laser output. To be fair, draft mode cranks out 3 pages per minute and letter quality 2ppm. On the other hand, I waited 10 minutes for that photograph printed on glossy paper.
The 2010 is just the ticket for light-duty or occasional-use color ink jet printing. If your needs go much beyond that, you should expect to set your sights a little higher and pay a bit more.
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Okidata Okijet 2010
Price: $499
Okidata
800-OKI-DATA, 609-235-2600
Big Blue's New Hue: Infrared
by: James Alan Miller
Big Blue brings the colorless world of infrared communications to everyday computing with its line of serial infrared adapters. IBM is a member of the Infrared Data Association, the consortium that developed specifications for infrared use. IBM offers three infrared models: a Type II PCMCIA serial adapter for notebooks, a Micro Channel adapter and an ISA serial adapter for desktops. I looked at the ISA and PCMCIA adapters.
Installation was easy. While installing the ISA adapter into a Zeos Pantera Pentium 90, I had to resolve a memory conflict with the mouse driver by setting aside an area of memory in CONFIG.SYS's EMM386.EXE line (the manual contains easy-to-follow instructions). Also, the ISA adapter lets you adjust for any IRQ, I/O or memory conflicts by changing the card's DIP switch settings. The PCMCIA adapter depends on your notebook's card and socket services to manage IRQs, memory and I/O addresses.
Software includes a diagnostic program, IRDATEST. EXE, which detects errors and helps you configure your adapter, and IRMODE.EXE, which lets you set your infrared adapter to communicate either in HP or Sharp mode. Using the adapters, the two computers were able to communicate with each other over distances of several feet. The connection was stable and swift.
IBM's Serial Infrared Adapters help make the synchronization of files between your laptop and desktop convenient.
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IBM Serial Infrared Adapters
Price: PCMCIA, $249; ISA, $229
IBM Corp.
800-426-7299
Think Sync with Contact Bridge
by James E. Powell
Elan's GoldMine helps keep you in touch with your business contacts. GoldSync is an add-on that lets you dial in to update your remote databases or to download changes from the field.
You can remotely sync appointment and contact-record changes. You can even have the home office system call you back when all remote-site changes have been processed.
A GoldSync server handles up to four telephone lines and can be linked to other servers. Servers are controlled from an Administrator's screen, where remote access privileges and passwords are defined. The types of records to be transferred contact, appointment or history can be defined for each user. And you can set filters to update records only for a specific geographic area.
You create and send a "transfer set" of changes, so connect time is minimized because you only send modified records.
The manual provides useful examples of typical working scenarios. You can monitor transfers as they occur, while an activity log tracks all transactions.
Although GoldSync offers many customization options for your remote update process, it's still easy to set up and use. GoldSync extends the reach of GoldMine and, in doing so, makes it a more strategic tool for managing your customer contacts.
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GoldSync 1.0
Price: Two users, $299; five users, $695.
Disk Space: 2.4MB
System Resources: 9%
RAM: 4MB required, 8MB recommended
Elan Software Corp.
800-654-3526, fax 310-454-6800
It Couldn't Be Much Faster
by Jeffrey Sloman
Need a little joy in your life? The AXIS 150 network print server is one of those products that is a pleasure to use. Well-designed with a very clear focus on usability, the AXIS 150 is a great way to get printers running on your network. The box that the AXIS 150 ships in contains the print server, a high-quality parallel cable pair for connecting printers, a small pamphlet and two diskettes.
Hardware installation is a matter of connecting a 10BaseT network cable and the power supply a wall-cube style adapter and hooking up printers to the two parallel ports. The print server is accessed by its name, so the only other task is to note the name printed on the back.
The software installation is just as simple: A Windows-based setup program provides two installers, one for NetWare and one for Windows. The box also supports Windows 95, NT and OS/2, without any special software requirements. The AXIS 150 manual in the form of an Adobe Acrobat document and the Acrobat Reader are also installed at setup.
With the software setup completed, all you have to do is run the installer for Windows or NetWare to get connected. Just answer a few simple questions and you'll be printing in minutes.
Several other aspects of the AXIS 150 show a commitment to user friendliness. For example, by pressing a small button on the server, you can produce a test page. Through a clever use of Post-Script, this test page will work on both PostScript and text printers. Double-click on the button to produce a diagnostic page useful for troubleshooting. Triple-clicking produces a Quick Installation Guide. That's right it will print its own manual, including tech support numbers.
The AXIS 150 is a great choice for someone who needs to share printers on a heterogeneous network and doesn't want to play around with installation and configuration. At a list price of $399, it won't break your budget either.
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AXIS 150
Price: $399
Axis Communications
800-444-AXIS, 617-938-1188
Ethernet for Everyone
by: Jeffrey Sloman
The NDC Instant-Link PCMCIA Ethernet Adapter is being touted as the "first self-installing Ethernet adapter for everyone." It's a tall order, but for a first attempt, the Instant-Link is not bad. This NE2000-compatible card comes with a DOS-based installation program designed to install the adapter for the NetWare and Windows for Workgroups environments. This Type II card comes with a transceiver offering both 10Base2 and 10BaseT connections. The transceiver is relatively bulky, since it incorporates both media types in one box. It connects to the card with a solid AMP connector, which feels substantial enough to inspire confidence.
The menu-driven installer asks which environment you will be using, and then sets about its work. This will probably go very well if your notebook uses one of the supported chip sets or versions of Card and Socket services.
During the NetWare installation, a couple of DOS error messages appeared (Bad Command or Filename), so I expected an installation failure. Whatever caused these messages did not interfere with the successful installation of the card's drivers, and rebooting the machine resulted in a good connection to the NetWare server. NetWare users will appreciate the automatic generation of a batch file for loading the drivers and logging into the server.
The diskette with the installer also contains an enabler, which will allow any NE2000 driver to use the card. Packet drivers and setup files for several other popular network operating systems are included.
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NDC Instant-Link PCMCIA Ethernet Adapter
Price: 10BaseT, $179; coax and 10BaseT Combo, $199
NDC Communication
800-632-1118; 408-428-9108